Destiny: Rise of Iron Review Part 2

Onto Part 2 of my Rise of Iron Review! If you missed Part 1, here it is. http://amazingspidertank.blogspot.com/2016/09/destiny-rise-of-iron-review-part-1.html

Rise of Iron introduced to us a whole slew of new things. We got a new record book, new ornaments, new types of artifacts, and of course new weapons and armor. We also got a new strike and 2 of our old strikes got minor facelifts. And lastly, I want to touch upon our new enemy. So let's dig in:

Yummm...grinding....

We got a new record book, similar to the SRL and Moments of Triumph record books of the past. These have been great ideas. It keeps players working towards something, and it's exciting when you get to a new level. The best part of this record book has to be the awesome armor that comes with it (see below). While the armor won't be catapulting you into high light levels, it sure does look awesome. The look of this can also be changed using the new Ornament system that Destiny offers.

Ornaments are things that can be added on certain weapons and armor in order to change their appearance. Random chance boxes can be bought with real money, but they can be earned in game. They can be gotten in a nightfall or raid, or from treasure chests that can be won weekly. These are a great idea. It's a chance for players to customize their look so we can all be precious little snowflakes. For instance, each of the Rise of Iron record book armor can have an ornament added to it to turn it into a sweet iron furnace-looking armor:

Is this Destiny or some weird Dark Souls DLC?

For you wannabe Lord Saurons out there

We also have new artifacts. Artifacts in Destiny have just been little modifiers that change your attributes. They haven't been anything too special. But in RoI, they have changed them up in a pretty significant way! You can earn these ornaments from weekly quests. Based off of 8 Iron Lords, each new artifact grants its user some kind of special ability. For example, one of the artifacts available this first week is the Memory of Jolder, which gives the player unlimited sprint! Another is the Memory of Timur, which allows you to convert enemies to your side for a limited amount of time! One of the ones I am most interested is the Memory of Radeghast:

No, not that one

The Memory of Radeghast allows you to use your heavy sword to reflect projectiles, rockets, even some supers! My mind races with the possibility of reflecting raid boss shots back at them, and the hilarity of watching a Hunter get killed by his own Golden Gun.

A face only a mother could love. Now THAT'S blind love!

We also got a new strike called the Wretched Eye. In this one we get to go fight Frankenstein and his monster. Well...run from his monster anyway. This strike feels different from previous ones. There is a lot of vertical movement in this strike as you go down into the depths of what looks like old missile silos, searching for your prey. All the while you are harassed by enemies. You are trying to find a Devil Splicer High Priest, who apparently likes to capture Hive Ogres, remove their eyes, and use their pew-pew-ness to power his own weapons. The final area is by far the best part as you need to dispose of the bullet spongey boss, all the while avoiding the Reagan-smashing blind Ogre that's stomping about with hands that look like they are made of WWII submarine mines. It's great, thrilling fun, all the better when done on Heroic Mode or during the Nightfall.

We also got 2 older strikes that were revisited: Sepiks Perfected and Abomination Heist Siva Phogoth. Sepiks Perfected has us revisiting our very first strike and rekilling our very first strike boss. The strike plays out mainly the same, although the enemies are slightly different, and the path is slightly different. At the end we fight the aforementioned boss, only this time he has an invulnerable shield that we have to take out by first killing a captain with the matching shield color boom gun. Once the shields are down (thanks Admiral Ackbar!), we can lay waste to the boss. My thoughts are those mechanics will be coming back in the raid.

However, Bungie got smart and removed all our old cheesing spots by putting respawning turrets everywhere, so we have to stay outdoors. Probably my favorite part of this strike is the awesome guitar music in the background. It definitely comes as a surprise, but it's a welcome one, and I wished more of Destiny had such epic music.

Abomination Heist has us revisiting Phogoth. Honestly I can't recall too much of a difference other than enemies. There is one part where you have to traverse some tomb ships that served as a pleasant reminder of the King's Fall Raid, but other than that the strike is pretty lackluster.

We also can get loot in a different way in the strikes. Now there are things called skeleton keys, which can be used on the treasure chest located at the end of every strike. Opening these things gives access to rewards at the top light level, and rewards can be specific to the strike. So if you really want that Darkblade Helm, just save your skeleton key for the Darkblade strike. However, good luck finding skeleton keys. I am finding those things harder to get than a Vex Mythoclast.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the new enemy: Siva

I'm sure there's a cream for that...

***Story Spoiler Warning!!!*** Siva used to be a nanotechnology used in the Golden Age to help the human colonization of the galaxy. At some point it went rogue and became more of a virus. The Iron Lords attempted to destroy it but only managed to contain it in the Plaguelands, losing most of their members in the process. It is this weird red looking Twizzler mess that has infected everything.

Exactly like this

The Fallen, who are always up for pirating and using whatever they need to in order to win (Like Vex stuff in the House of Wolves), have brought it upon themselves to take it to the next level of evolution.

The new Splicer Fallen enemies are "enhanced", says the game. Honestly they are just reskinned, but they do behave slightly different just like the Taken did. They all have a red/black coloring about them and usually shoot red lasers, unlike their blue-brethren. The basic soldiers have peg legs for some reason.

Peg legs are great for snow traversing

The snipers shoot multiple bursts instead of one beam, and another thing Siva does apparently is burst out of your head when your head gets shot, to go and find who did and kill them in a red mist.

I feel about the same way I felt about the Taken, although the Taken did at least arrive in a unique way. Fallen Splicers are basically just reskinned Fallen troops that borrow some abilities.

In my next article I will hopefully get to talk about the new raid, and compare it with the previous ones. I hope you enjoyed this, happy gaming!